Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani Read Free Book Online Page A

friend, Viola. You have a lot to offer. You’re just scared. But we all are. So you shouldn’t feel like you’re the only one, because you’re not.”
    “Thanks.” If there was a basket by the check-out counter that I could fill with the shame I’m feeling right now, it wouldn’t fit through the doors. I haven’t taken ten seconds to look around and see what the other girls are going through. I’m a total Mimi. Me. Me. Me.
    “Besides…” Marisol checks Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass off her list, then looks at me. “Does it make it better to complain? I mean, we’re here for the duration and I don’t want to be miserable. Do you?”
    I follow Marisol to the check-out line. And for the first time since I’ve landed at Prefect Academy, I feel alittle twinge of belonging, as though maybe I can make this work until it’s time to go home and go back to my real life in Brooklyn. It’s just like my mom always says, “You can make friends anywhere in the world. Just say hello.” Well, this is taking a lot more than just hello, but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

FOUR
    Dear Mom and Dad,
    Well, you were sort of like maybe half right about me adjusting to PA. It’s almost a month or a quarter way into the term and I’m starting to almost sort of actually like it here. I played pick-up basketball with the girls from my hall after dinner tonight. I just sort of grabbed the ball and started dribbling. My days on the public court by LaGuardia really paid off as I’m one of the only girls here who can do a proper layup (omitting the varsity team of course). Anyhoo, (that’s Indiana for a Brooklyn vamp) I’m doing okay in my classes. So far. The teachers are on the lookout for any girl having what looks like a mental breakdown due to homesickness or anything else that’s tragic. I’m pretty lucky. I haven’t had a crying jag in the library yet. But maybe it’s coming. Who knows? I sure wish I was with you. And please, Mom, don’t let Dad hog the footage you’ve shot. Send it and let me see what you’re seeing. Dad is, like, way too much of a perfectionist and he’ll wait till the job is completely done before he shows me ANY footage at all. Afghanistan is in the news, like, every day over here. I have it on auto-news pop-up. I liked the pix of your layover in London. I could use some of those scones and clotted cream you had at that tea room called Nigel Stoneman’s. It looked delish. As for the food: The breakfast here is the best, so I load up then. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a doughnut machine. Lunch is salad bar and stuff, and dinner is like casseroles that Grand makes when four billion people are coming over to her apartment after the theater. You know, ground beef, cheese, and mystery sauce. Oh, and I might do something with Founder’s Day stuff. More to come on that later. That’s all I got for now. Love you both, V.
    Mrs. Carleton is one of those teachers who, when you’re sitting in class and only half listening, you imagine a beauty makeover for her. She has potential with nice features like pretty brown eyes and brown hair and a petite figure. But her eyes are all bleary and red from beingup all night (she has a new baby), and her haircut is a bob that’s all uneven on the bottom (she probably cuts it herself with nail scissors), and she wears khaki pants with a baggy seat and one of those XL sherbet-colored sweaters that seem to be so popular on the Indiana side of the dividing line of the French and Indian War. She starts out the period wearing peach lip gloss, but by the end she’s bitten it all off, and then she has absolutely zero makeup on.
    Mrs. Carleton requires us to leave all cell phones and BlackBerrys in a basket on her desk before class begins. On the first day of class, a couple girls left their phones on vibrate and the vibration actually made the basket walk off the edge of her desk and fall on the floor with the phones going everywhere. All twelve of us ran to